Neil Gaiman has described Heart-Shaped Box as "the best debut horror novel since Clive Barker's".

This is perhaps a little hyperbolic (Gaiman's a great author and a man of taste, but he is rather prone to being too nice about books by people he likes); nonetheless, Joe Hill certainly makes an impressive entrance.

Horror fiction seemed to have lost its way in a blizzard of cliche and gore, to the extent that any new writer of merit would distance themselves from the field by adopting labels such as 'dark fantasy' or 'slipstream' instead; Heart-Shaped Box, though, is unashamedly and unmistakably horror.

An ageing rock god, stage name Judas Coyne, buys a haunted suit from an internet auction site, motivated by little more than ghoulish curiosity; as you might expect, this sets in motion all manner of unpleasantness.

What might seem like a cautionary tale about the ease with which one can make regrettable purchases online soon reveals far more personal roots.

Hill is more a storyteller than a stylist, though he has a compelling line in whispers from beyond the grave; "we will ride together on the night road" and "the dead pull the living down" are two of the more chilling refrains.

He's successfully woven strands of family drama and American road movie with his horror, and that horror itself combines traditional motifs with images all its own, old-fashioned ghost stories with uncanny applications of modern technology.

Every character in his small cast is well-drawn (especially Coyne, who could so easily have been a stereotype); his handling of them is as assured in the scenes of everyday life as when they're facing the supernatural.

Gaiman may be overstating the merits of Heart-Shaped Box a little, but Joe Hill's debut is certainly the work of an important new horror voice.

By ALEX SARLL